Biographies, Autobiographies & Memoirs for names T, U, V

William Howard Taft

Duffy, Herbert S.

NY: Minton, Balch 1930 Dewey Dec. Biography

Taft, William Howard, U.S. President (1857-1930)

The Great Intendant; A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672

Chapais, Thomas

Toronto: Glasgow, Brook 1921 Dewey Dec. Biography

Talon, Jean (1626-1694)

Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer

Ritchie, Andrew

Bicycle Books 1988

“Return to the golden age of bicycle racing in America. Until now a forgotten, shadowy figure, Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor is revealed as a fascinating personality in the world of sports. This beautifully illustrated, told and scrupulously researched biography recreates the life of a great champion in the international sporting world at the tum of the century. Read the dramatic story of the young black man who rose to fame and stardom against all odds. ‘Major Taylor’ introduces you to the tempestuous world of international professional bicycle racing, and to one of the sport’s most intriguing personalities.” – Book cover

Taylor, Marshall Walter “Major” (1878-1932)

Tecumseh: A Life

Sugden, John

Henry Holt 1998

“A charismatic leader with outstanding military and political talents, Tecumseh created a powerful pan-Indian alliance to replace intertribal conflict and indifference. A major figure in the War of 1812, he helped defeat American attempts to invade Canada, and his followers engaged U.S. armies across the entire frontier. . . The product of thirty years of research in North America and Europe, this comprehensive and authoritative biography offers new revelations about every stage of the legendary chief’s life by the leading scholar on Tecumseh and the Shawnees.” – Book cover

Tecumseh (1768-1813)

The Print of My Remembrance

Thomas, Augustus

Scribner 1922 Dewey Dec. Biography

“The record of Mr. Thomas’s typically American career as page-boy in Congress, labor agitator, newspaper correspondent, cartoonist, fiction writer, actor, and playwright. Full of interesting reminiscences of actors. Contains a chronological list of his plays.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Thomas, Augustus (1857-1934)

The Life of Henry David Thoreau, including many essays hitherto unpublished, and some account of his family and friends

Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin

Houghton 1917 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A pleasing combination of biography, interpretation, and personal tribute.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“Sanborn had the gift that novelists envy of presenting his hero living and real before the mind’s eye of his reader without blurring the figure by over-emphasis.”
“So thorough has been the search for records and manuscripts that it is unlikely that there will ever be further discoveries of importance.”
– The Book Review Digest

Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)

Life and Times of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston

Wife of Rev. Asa Thurston, Pioneer Missionary to the Sandwich Islands, gathered from letters and journals extending over a period of more than fifty years

Thurston, Lucy Goodale

Andrews 1882 Dewey Dec. Biography

The Sandwich Islands are now known as Hawaii or the Hawaiian Islands.

Thurston, Lucy Goodale (1787-1868)

Titian (Library of art)

Gronau, Georg

Scribner 1904 Dewey Dec. Biography

“Clarifies for the ordinary reader the main phases of Titian’s development as an artist, his personality, and his relations with his great patrons.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Titian, Vecelli (1477-1576)

How Count L. N. Tolstoy Lives and Works

Sergyeenko, P. A.

Crowell 1899 Dewey Dec. Biography

Tolstoy, Leo (Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) (1822-1910)

Tolstoy (Master Spirits of Literature)

Noyes, George Rapall

Duffield 1918 Dewey Dec. Biography

“Professor Noyes has written a most satisfactory life of Tolstoy and a brilliant connected criticism of his writings. He reveals Tolstoy as the literary artist who achieved impeccable perfection, and as a moralist and preacher in the proper relation to his age.”
– The Book Review Digest

Tolstoy, Leo (Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) (1822-1910)

Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition

Sabatini, Rafael

Houghton 1924 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A thorough study, detached and nonpartisan, of one of the strangest characters in history and of the instrument he fashioned in the Spanish inquisition to establish the unquestioned power of the Church of Rome.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Torquemada, Tomas de (1420-1498)

Spencer Tracy: Tragic Idol

Davidson, Bill

Dutton 1988

Actor Spencer Tracy was born in Milwaukee and educated in Catholic schools. He served briefly in the Navy in World War I, then returned to complete high school and afterward began classes at Ripon College, where he started his acting career.
“Complemented by reminiscences of Tracy by Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, Elia Kazan, Pat O’Brien, and other celebrities, this [book] exposes the more troubled side of one of Hollywood’s greatest stars.” – Publisher

Tracy, Spencer (1900-1967)

Autobiography

Trudeau, Edward Livingston

Doubleday 1916 Dewey Dec. Biography

“This pioneer physician in the open-air treatment of tuberculosis gives a human and inspiring record of his ideals and achievements in establishing the sanitarium and laboratory at Saranac, N. Y.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Trudeau, Edward Livingston (1848-1915)

Soujourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend

Mabee, Carleton

New York University 1993

Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) was a very influential African American abolitionist and activist for women’s rights. In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazine’s list of the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time”. In 1857 she moved from Massachusetts to Battle Creek, MI in 1857 and lived there for the remainder of her life.

Truth, Sojourner (c. 1797-1883)

Harriet; The Moses of Her People

Bradford, Sarah H.

Lockwood 1886 Dewey Dec. Biography

Biography of Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist who, among many achievements, made 13 missions into the south to rescue slaves via the underground railroad.

Tubman, Harriet (1822-1913)

Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

Clinton, Catherine

Little, Brown 2004 Dewey Dec. 973.7

“One of the most important and enduring figures in the history of 19th century America, the legendary conductor on the Underground Railroad whose courageous exploits have been described in countless books for young readers, is here revealed for the first time as a singular and complex character, a woman who defied simple categorisation. In this, the first major biography of Harriet Tubman in more than 100 years, we see the heroine of children’s books and biopics with a new clarity and richness of detail.” -Time

Contents: Remembering Harriet Tubman — Born into bondage — Coming of age in the land of Egypt — Crossing over to freedom — In a free state — The Liberty lines — The Moses of her people — Canadian exile — Trouble in Canaan — Crossroads at Harpers Ferry — Arise, Brethren — Bittersweet victories — Final battles.

Tubman, Harriet (1822-1913)

Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol 1

Volume 2

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne

Harper 1917 Dewey Dec. Biography

Delightful letters arranged with comment by his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine. “He was a man of few restraints and of no affectations. in his correspondence, as in his talk, he spoke what was in his mind, untrammeled by literary conventions.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1912-1921

Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel Langhorne) (1835-1910)

A Short Life of Mark Twain

Paine, Albert Bigelow

Harper 1920 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A condensation and selection from Mark Twain, a Biography; the Personal and Literary Life. 1912. 3 vols. It is well done but does not replace the full work.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“In answer to the demand for a short life of Mark Twain. Mr Paine, his official biographer, has prepared a condensed version of his longer work. The story is told in brief chapters and in simple language and is adapted for young people’s reading. There are eighteen Illustrations.”
– The Book Review Digest

See also: Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi in Navigation on the Great Lakes & the Region’s Rivers

Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel Langhorne) (1835-1910)

A Child of the Orient

Vaka, Demetra

Houghton 1914 Dewey Dec. Biography

Reminiscences of the author’s early days as a Greek child in Constantinople, of her childhood friends, of women in the harems, of her theoretical hatred and personal affection for the Turks. Also describes her first years in America.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1912-1921

Vaka, Demetra (Mrs. Kenneth Brown) (1877-1946)

Haremlik; Some Pages from the Life of Turkish Women

Vaka, Demetra

Houghton 1909 Dewey Dec. Biography

See the other entry on this page for Demetra Vaka.

Vaka, Demetra (Mrs. Kenneth Brown) (1877-1946)

Martin Van Buren (American Statesmen)

Shepard, Edward Morse

Houghton 1888 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A biography which places Van Buren on a high plane of statesmanship as a real successor of Jefferson and his associates. It gives a new interpretation to both national and New York state politics of 1820-50.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Van Buren, Martin, U.S. President (1782-1862)

Venizelos (Modern Statesmen series)

Gibbons, Herbert Adams

Houghton 1923 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A life which includes the history of his political career, of his work for Greece during the war and the part Greece has played in the Balkan triangle under the leadership of this great patriot.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“Contents: The boyhood and early manhood of an unredeemed Greek: A revolutionary by profession; Venizelos solves the Cretan question; Venizelos intervenes in Greece; The Balkan alliance surprises Europe; Turkey is crushed by her former Balkan subjects; The second Balkan war and the treaty of Bukarest; Venizelos reorganizes Greece internally; Venizelos offers to Join the entente against Germany; Constantine tries to keep Greece neutral; Venizelos goes to Saloniki: Greece In the world war; Venizelos at the peace conference; Greece against the Integrity of the Ottoman empire.”
“Aside from its strictly biographical features, this volume is a contribution to the recent history of the Balkans, as well as to that of the peace conference at Paris.”
“Much of this biography is based on the author’s personal acquaintance with his subject. As a college teacher in the Near East he has, moreover, an intimate knowledge of the entire political situation that precipitated the second Balkan war, that kept Greece neutral in 1915 and 1916, and that dictated the policy of Venizelos at the peace conference.”
– The Book Review Digest

Venizelos, Eleftherios (1864-1936)

Paul Verlaine

Nicolson, Harold George

Houghton 1921 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A brilliant biography and an impartial estimate of a much discussed French poet who illustrates vividly the currents and cross-currents which swayed French poetry between the sixties and the nineties. Verlaine reflected and inspired the impulses of the Symbolists and the Decadents.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“The author‘s apology for writing still another life of Verlaine is that Verlaine, during his lifetime, stood in a unique relation to the movements of French literature. Born during the romantic period, his first writings were composed under the aegis of the Parnassians, and his later years reflected and inspired the impulses of the symbolists and the decadents. No one illustrates more vividly the currents and cross-currents which swayed French poetry between the ‘sixties and the ’nineties. No biography can equal his as an introduction to the French literature of to-day. The poet is depicted as a mild and docile creature while not under the brutalizing influence of drink, and amenable to every form of discipline except self-discipline. One chapter is devoted to Arthur Rimbaud, the evil genius of Verlaine’s life.”
– The Book Review Digest

Verlaine, Paul Marie (1844-1896)

Victoria

Strachey, Giles Lytton

Harcourt 1921 Dewey Dec. Biography

“A fascinating presentation of the Queen and her time, keen characterizations of Lord Melbourne, Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli, and an impressive and convincing portrait of the Prince Consort. Done with the frankness and subtlety of a great artist.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“In the long. amazing career which we follow we are ever conscious of the Queen as a woman, of the social and political atmosphere of the changes she lived through, and of her relation to those changes as head of the State. The career of the Queen falls into five periods — the Melbourne period, her married years, the years of seclusion and unpopularity which followed the death of the Prince Consort, her emergence under the influence of Disraeli, and finally her apotheosis in old age as the mother of her people and the symbol of their imperial greatness.”
“Mr Strachey has the advantage of dealing with real people, instead of with characters laboriously abstracted from life in general, and his book is more fascinating an compelling than most novels.”
– The Book Review Digest

Victoria, Queen of Great Britain (1819-1901)

Villiers, His Five Decades of Adventure Vol 1

Volume 2

Villiers, Frederic

Harper 1920 Dewey Dec. Biography

“Two volumes devoted to the life of a veteran war correspondent and artist. He was born in 1851, in England, and his first association with wars came in 1870 when he went over to Paris to pick up material for a panorama of the Franco-Prussian war. The next adventure that offered was the war between Serbia and Turkey in 1876, and others followed, taking him to every part of the earth, down to the great war.”
“Here between covers are the dramatic figures and the stirring events of two and a half generations presented by a writer trained throughout a lifetime in the art of bringing out all the high lights and shades of dramatic contrasts.”
– The Book Review Digest

Villiers, Frederic (1851-1922)

History of St Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) and of the Sisters of Charity

Bougaud, Monseigneur

Longmans 1908 Dewey Dec. Biography

Father De Paul dedicated himself to organizing service to the poor. His colorful life included capture by Barbary pirates followed by enslavement in Tunis and Istanbul.

St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660)

Voltaire

Morley, John

Macmillan 1906 Dewey Dec. Biography

“An excellent work of some length.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926

Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de (1694-1778)

Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut

Klinkowitz, Jerome and Lawler, Donald L., eds.

Delta 1977

A collection of essays examine Kurt Vonnegut’s life and work, with a complete bibliography of works by and about Vonnegut and a photo album of his life.

Vonnegut, Kurt (1922-2007)